OF THE BLESSED CALLISTUS THE PATRIARCH CHAPTERS ON PRAYER
OF THE BLESSED CALLISTUS THE PATRIARCH CHAPTERS ON PRAYER
A 1. If you wish to learn the truth, imitate the lyre-player as an example. For he lowers his head, and applies his ear to the song, and plucks the plectrum with his hand, and at the same time, as the strings respond skillfully to one another, the lyre gives forth the melody, and the lyre-player exults, as if captivated by the sweetness of the honey.
A 2. Let the example be clear to you, O most diligent worker of the vineyard, and do not doubt; for if you watch from there as the lyre-player does, towards the depth, that is, of the heart, you will easily be able to possess what you are seeking. For a soul captured by divine love to its very depths cannot turn back to what is behind. “For my soul,” says the divine David, “cleaves to thee.”
B 3. Imagine for me, beloved, that the heart is the lyre, the senses are the strings, and the intellect is the plectrum, which by means of reason moves the plectrum continuously; this is the memory of God, from which an ineffable joy comes to the soul, and it portrays the divine rays to the pure mind as in a mirror.
B 4. If we do not close the senses of the body, the living water which the Lord granted to that Samaritan woman would not spring up in us. For while seeking this sensible water, she found within herself the water of life springing up. For just as the earth naturally possesses water and at the same time brings it forth, so too does the earth of the heart, by nature, possess this springing and bubbling water, as it were the paternal light, which that Adam lost through his disobedience.
C 5. Just as water from an ever-flowing spring, so does the living and leaping water spring forth from the soul; which, indeed, having dwelt in the soul of the God-bearing man Ignatius, prepared him to say: “There is no fire in me that loves matter, but water that is living and speaking.”
C 6. This blessed, and indeed thrice-blessed, intellectual watchfulness of the soul is like water leaping and springing up from the depth of the heart; and the water given from the source fills the source, and that which springs from the heart, and
so to speak, is moved unceasingly by the Spirit, makes the whole inner man full of divine dew and spirit, and renders the outer man fiery.
B7. The mind that has been purified from external things, and has wholly subjected the senses through ancestral virtue, remains motionless like the axis of the heavens, always looking toward the depth of the heart as a center, and governing the head; it looks thither, having, as it were, the rays of the understanding as arrows drawing divine thoughts from thence, and subjecting all the senses of the body.
8. Let no one, hearing [of these things], among those who are uninitiated or in need of milk, lay hold of such forbidden things out of season. For the holy Fathers have judged those who seek after the things of the season before the season, and who hasten to enter, as it were, the harbor of stillness without possessing the things they ought to possess, to be suffering from a kind of mental error; and nothing more than that. For it is impossible for one who does not know his letters to read from a tablet.
9. That which is moved by the divine Spirit in the soul through struggle, renders the mind tranquil, crying, "Abba, Father"; but that [divine movement] is without form or figure; yet it transforms us with the brightness of the divine light, and refashions us as is fitting, together with the burning of the divine Spirit; but it also changes and alters us, as He alone knows how, by divine authority.
C10. The mind that has been purified through watchfulness is easily darkened if it does not depart entirely from external things through the continuous memory of Jesus. But he who has harmonized action with contemplation—that is, the guard of the mind—does not reject tumult; that is, he does not cast out [the presence of] confusing or even non-confusing noise. For the soul that has been wounded by the divine ardor of Christ follows Him as its beloved.
11. Those who live in the world must restrain the passions of the flesh and their stirrings, or else be at peace with reason, according to the verse: "Be still, and know," D and recognize that this is possible. But it is impossible to destroy or dissipate them [entirely]. The eremitic life, however, knows how to clearly uproot them.
12. Of leaping water, one part has a sharper motion, while the other has a tranquil and slower one. Therefore, the former cannot easily be muddied because of the speed of its motion; and if it is slightly muddied, it is more easily purified again, since it has such motion. But when the flow of water has diminished so that it becomes very small, it is not only muddied, but it remains almost motionless; for it needs a certain new cleansing, so to speak, and movement.
13. To those who are beginners, and those who are moral and practical, the demon enters through noise that is confused or even articulated. But to those who are engaged in contemplation, he presents certain fantasies, so that it seems to them that he is coloring the air like light; at other times he brings them forth as fire, so that by the contrary part he may lead away